Conventional electric vehicles may be equipped with a high voltage traction battery for use as a primary source of power and an auxiliary battery for use in powering various electrical components. The high voltage traction battery is typically isolated from the vehicle chassis. It is possible, however, to cause a short circuit between the traction battery and the body of the vehicle.
Certain previous works in detecting such resistive paths have involved deliberately providing a return path for current to flow through the resistive path into the vehicle chassis and back to the traction battery.